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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
helpmate
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And these wives are largely locked into a role of helpmate and lead supporter for their husband-the-diplomat.
▪ As for Jamie, he saw her as nothing but a helpmate for Katherine and a nursemaid for Patrick.
▪ The modern wife is considered more of an equal partner and helpmate than a chattel or a housekeeper.
▪ What about John Noakes and indeed his trusty helpmate Shep?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Helpmate

Helpmate \Help"mate`\, n. [A corruption of the ``help meet for him'' of
--Genesis ii. 18.
--Fitzedward Hall.] A helper; a companion; specifically, a wife.

In Minorca the ass and the hog are common helpmates, and are yoked together in order to turn up the land.
--Pennant.

A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson.
--Macaulay.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
helpmate

"companion," 1715, altered from helpmeet, a ghost word, from the Biblical translation of Latin adjutorium simile sibi [Gen. ii:18] as "an help meet (i.e. fit) for him" (Hebrew 'ezer keneghdo), which already by 1673 was being printed as help-meet and mistaken for one word.

Wiktionary
helpmate

n. 1 A person who supplies help or companionship. 2 A wife or spouse. 3 (context chess English) A recreational problem in chess in which both sides cooperate to achieve a specific goal.

WordNet
helpmate

n. a helpful partner [syn: helpmeet]

Wikipedia
Helpmate

A helpmate is a type of chess problem in which both sides cooperate in order to achieve the goal of checkmating Black. In a helpmate in n moves, Black moves first, then White, each side moving n times, to culminate in White's nth move checkmating Black. (In a helpmate in two for example, sometimes abbreviated h#2, the solution consists of a Black move, a White move, a second Black move, then a second White move, giving checkmate.) Although the two sides cooperate, all moves must be legal according to the rules of chess.

The example problem to the right is a helpmate in eight (or h#8) by Z. Maslar, published in Die Schwalbe in 1981. The solution is (recall that in helpmate solutions, Black's move is given first): 1. Kf3 Kd3 2. Bb3 Kc3 3. Ke4+ Kd2 4. Kd4 Ke2 5. Kc3 Nb4 6. Kb2 Kd2 7. Ka1 Kc1 8. Ba2 Nc2#

Helpmate (disambiguation)

Helpmate may refer to the following:

  • Helpmate (chess)
  • Helpmate (Bible)
  • Helpmates film
  • Mac HelpMate application

Usage examples of "helpmate".

He would make an ideal helpmate, worshipping his employer with that rare quality of being interested in his ideas and aims beyond the mere earning of a salary.

She was short, well-formed, round-faced, always an excellent helpmate and hos-less, but her bubbliness had dwindled on the Moon.

Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false—except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true.

Real helpmates, they was, ready to take their share in all that was going.

But his wife upheld his pure, rigid values, and during their twenty-year marriage, in the thousands of nights that they'd shared the same bed - as companions, as helpmates, as soul mates - they'd engaged in sex a total of only three times, and during those three ritualistic occasions, they'd permitted themselves to experience the base pleasures of the flesh strictly for the purpose of producing children.

The bridesmaids, down to little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an intellectual point of view, fit helpmates for the calculating boy.